


one, two, three

by akhikosanada



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A piece about the role of a dancer, Battlefield, Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Time Skip, Written for In Time's Flow, Zine piece, a fight scene with a boss fight baby!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26482324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akhikosanada/pseuds/akhikosanada
Summary: "One, two, threecoupsof thunder fly from her fingers and clatter into the enemy ranks, her spell abrigadiercalling for attention, and the battalions barrel forward with a bellow, her feet beating in time with her heart on the already bloody ground. Her sword sings through the space between the first enemy and her, strikes at the wind and a body part, one step and a dodge, two steps and a blow, three steps and a kill, red on red on her dress.Her audience cheers."
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	one, two, three

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for In Time's Flow, a FE3H fan album project! I had a lot of fun pitching this piece and making it come to life to the amazing sound of bass <3   
> You can listen to the track here: https://fe3hfm.bandcamp.com/track/one-two-three 
> 
> Thanks again so much to the mods for letting me be part of such a wonderful, wonderful project. <3 It truly was an absolute blast!!

One, two, three steps forward, and Dorothea disappears into the Dancer.

It isn’t a compliment; it’s a conclusion, one the whole army came to, one that became a moniker, less from that time she won the White Heron Cup, lifetimes ago, than from the way she moves across the battlefield like it’s a stage — so frighteningly familiar she wishes it wasn’t. One, two, three _coups_ of thunder fly from her fingers and clatter into the enemy ranks, her spell a _brigadier_ calling for attention, and the battalions barrel forward with a bellow, her feet beating in time with her heart on the already bloody ground. Her sword sings through the space between the first enemy and her, strikes at the wind and a body part, one step and a dodge, two steps and a blow, three steps and a kill, red on red on her dress. 

Her audience cheers.

Dorothea knows her part: a confident combatant, pushing through the front lines with graceful motions and a smile on her face, flitting about friend and foe, blade solid in her hand. It had been the Professor’s idea, to use her natural talent as a way to bolster troops and invigorate her classmates-turned-comrades, to help them have faith in victory. It works, too, though whether it’s because of her own skill or because men — and especially noble men — are loath to concede weakness in front of a woman of common birth killing a dozen of their kind, she cannot be too sure. Another enemy — a cut, a parry, a thrust, and Dorothea lets go of another clasp of thunder, the soldier flying backwards onto a knight and scaring the horse enough that it rears back and pummels him into the singed grass. No time to look at the massacre; Dorothea is already a dozen feet away, twirling around Sylvain to help him tear down his opponent, a slash of her blade and a strike of his lance. She heals the gash into his arm as he thanks her, and spurs him into action with a spin and a smile. 

A gust of wind blasts her off-kilter, off-rhythm; a trample of hooves adds a fourth, unrehearsed beat to her battlefield dance, makes her catch her footing, a gibbous sidestep over blood and blades and bones. A beast bursts through the bosk, black on black, nightmares made flesh, and the tune it trills turns her legs to stone. It’s warped and decayed like an elegy, the kind that made children cover their ears back at the opera; they’re all children, now, friend and foe alike, frozen in place and staring at their doom. For a single, metronomed instant, silence falls.

The beast surges forward, paws pounding like a wardrum, and the world is thrown into motion again.

Horses rush past her in canon, a chorus of cries rises through the sky — the Sword of the Creator tears cinders asunder as it lashes across the air and into that demonic jaw, throwing the beast far back enough that it turns onto their enemies. Feeble arrows ricochet onto twilight scales, glints of silver like dying stars before the breath leaves their archers as they get crushed into the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Ferdinand slashes at the side as Dorothea runs through the last of the soldiers, lets the song of her sword cut her path forward, and when she steps onto the main stage she sees only red, red eyes. 

Unfortunately, she’s always been good at stealing the spotlight.

The beast swipes at her with its gigantic claws, but her footwork knows no equal; she dances away and strikes at an ankle, cuts deep enough that the bone shines through. Her friends whistle and cheer as they cleave at the thighs, at the stomach, at the tail — the beast’s hind legs kick Lysithea through the cospe, and Byleth clamors high, orders Linhardt to go to her, far from the blood, far from the slaughter. Dorothea lets out her voice, sings spells that singe through skin and scales, and Sylvain strikes the shoulder, and Ferdinand slices through, head to tail, and Dorothea’s sword summons thunder, one, two, three—

The beast falls with a disharmonic cry like a desperate curtain call.

Dorothea’s blood beats into her ears as she sheathes her blade, looking at the familiar aftermath: the smoke rising from the horizon from where their last fire spells went out, the broken bits of armor and bone on the ground glittering in the scorching sun, the blood on the grass and the blood on her blade and the blood on her dress making her blend into the landscape as though she belongs here.

She walks on to the rhythm of her slowing heartbeat, and it’s like being in the eye of the storm again, or perhaps it’s just the tempest settling down into ruination; all her friends are alive, and the relief she feels at hearing Ferdinand’s boasts and Sylvain’s jokes and Lysithea’s sighs dissolves the ashes from her mouth. She helps Byleth count the dead, helps Mercedes tend to the wounded, helps herself to a pouch of well-deserved water. One of the men she’s healing falls over her, and she catches him in a mockery of a waltz, twirls him around to rest against a heated stone while she works on the cut in his stomach. 

When nobody is left to count or tend to, when all her friends are fed and accounted for, when all the horses and pegasi are patched up and given water, she finally, finally, sits over a rotten tree trunk, the splinters digging into her dress as she removes her shoes.

Her bloodied hands wash a cool spell over her bleeding feet. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Please tell me what you thought <3


End file.
